Sound Quality

The Corsair Virtuoso Pro is equipped with a pair of custom 50-millimeter dynamic speaker drivers that use graphene for a diaphragm. Graphene is exceptionally rigid, light, highly resistant to distortion, and has a low mass. Because of that, headphones with graphene speaker drivers are very easy to drive and generally produce a detailed, natural sound – if tuned properly. At the same time, graphene is notoriously hard to work with, so that's why we don't see it implemented more often, especially in the gaming headset department, where budget constraints usually don't allow for such escapades. As far as I'm aware, the only other gaming headset that uses graphene drivers is the recently released Logitech G Pro X 2 Lightspeed.

Back to the Corsair Virtuoso Pro. The specified frequency response of the built-in speaker drivers is 20-40,000 Hz, and the sensitivity is as high as 117 dB (±3 dB). Thanks to that, you can drive the Virtuoso Pro with pretty much anything, including integrated sound cards of all classes and cheap USB dongles. If you have live-streaming aspirations, rest assured that just about any audio interface on the market will be able to provide enough power for the Virtuoso Pro.

Recently, I've been thoroughly testing and experimenting with the miniDSP EARS headphone test fixture, probably the least expensive such device on the market. I'm at a point where I feel comfortable using it for frequency response measurements to present the results publicly. The miniDSP EARS consists of two miniDSP UMIK-1 microphones placed inside a pair of silicone ears and affixed to a steel headphone stand. It's a USB-powered device, perfectly integrated with the fantastic Room EQ Wizard (REW) software, which is used for headphone and microphone calibration, as well as doing the measurements themselves. Every single miniDSP EARS unit comes with its own microphone calibration files, which are loaded into REW before doing the measurements. The miniDSP EARS certainly has its quirks. The artificial ear canals aren't particularly deep, so I don't consider it a viable option for IEM testing. The integrated microphones are exceptionally sensitive to headphone positioning, partially because of the screws affixing the silicone ears to the stand, which aren't perfectly flush with the silicone surface. Some users also claim that the fixture is too narrow for very large Hi-fi headphones, so they have to use rubber bands to tighten the clamping force. The latter isn't something I had an issue with, though; all my headsets and headphones fit perfectly.

Because of all that, the miniDSP EARS is prone to user error. Whoever is using it has to know how to interpret the results and, even more importantly, how to spot those that are clearly flawed. After getting rid of the bad data, assuming the initial configuration and calibration were done properly, the resulting frequency response measurements are usable and in line with what one would hear from the headphones (or headset) in question. Once I got to where the frequency response plots corresponded to what I heard from the headphones and headsets I measured, I knew it was time to bring the results into my reviews. My testing methodology mostly follows the best practices of using the miniDSP EARS as covered in great detail in this article on Headphonesty. The most significant difference is that I'm using the updated HEQ compensation, where a subjectively neutral headphone would measure approximately flat. The audio source for my analog headphone and headset tests is the Creative Sound Blaster X5 external USB sound card. To compensate for minor seal variances, I'm measuring each ear until I get 10 usable results and reseat the headphones, or headset, between runs. After I have my results for one ear, I apply a 1/12 octave smoothing and average the measured responses. I then repeat the process for the other ear for an idea of whether any channel imbalance exists. It's important to keep in mind that my results cannot be directly compared to anyone else's, as only an identical methodology conducted on my exact sample of the miniDSP EARS would yield directly comparable results. Still, we now have a relevant visual representation of the sound characteristics of the headphones or headset under review, so I hope you find it useful.

You can explore my gaming headset frequency measurement database and follow its progress on my personal Squiglink. Let's take a look at the frequency response measurement of the Corsair Virtuoso Pro.




The sound performance of the Virtuoso Pro is one of the definite strong suits of the Corsair's headset. It sounds snappy, detailed, and carefully balanced across the board. The slight boost in the bass region isn't accompanied by any hints of sluggishness. What you get is a fast, concrete, and immensely satisfying punch in the mid-bass region, without overhang that would interfere with everything that's going on in the midrange. The vocals and instruments feel organically integrated into the mix. They're very present, detailed, and well separated, but never seem like Corsair's shoving them in our faces. The entire tuning of the Virtuoso Pro sounds like a lot of care was taken to eliminate fatigue-causing annoyances such as vocal shoutiness or shrillness of certain higher-pitched instruments and sounds. I really enjoyed how that translated to both music and games. I was able to turn the volume up as high as I wanted, with no risk that my ears would start to hurt from being exposed to the sound coming out of the Virtuoso Pro.


For an open-back design, the soundstage isn't extremely wide, and I didn't have a feeling I'm hearing sounds from outside of my head very often, so if that's something you're after, you should probably look elsewhere. That doesn't mean the Virtuoso Pro will leave you wondering where you're getting shot from in your favorite online first-person shooter. Quite the opposite; the positional cues are picked up early and accurately. This is one of those gaming headsets that give you a feeling of being in control on the battlefield, and that's one of many reasons why you'll enjoy using it. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the sound performance of the Virtuoso Pro, regardless of what I used it for.

Let's take a look at the frequency response comparison to the Drop+Sennheiser PC38X.



The PC38X puts a bit more emphasis on the 60 Hz region while being leaner from 90 Hz onwards. It also sounds less snappy overall, and a bit more sibilant with female vocals. The differences aren't drastic, though. Both headsets sound excellent, but if I had to pick one, I'd give a slight advantage to the Corsair Virtuoso Pro. Do keep in mind that both these headsets, while not particularly different between themselves, sound vastly better than most other gaming headsets on the market. We're in the Hi-fi headphone territory with either of these.